This is for the "What in the world is that?" category. You have something different, something odd or just putting things together in a different way?. Tell us about it and let us comment, laugh, or puke....

My country house has big thickets of Jerusalem artichoke (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem_artichoke ) Helianthus tuberosus L . They say that Jerusalem artichoke is very useful for the intestines. Lies. Trash is rare. And it also causes severe attacks of flatulence. Every year I try to destroy it, but it is still growing. I read that his tubers contain a large amount of inulin. I thought - what good is lost, let me make moonshine from it.I read special literature. I chose the simplest and hardest method - acid hydrolysis. In a concrete mixer (Russian national way) washed two buckets of tubers. The old food processor (do not tell my wife!) Chopped the tubers. It turned out about 12 liters of gray porridge. Added there a glass (russian glass - 170 ml) of ELECTROLYTE FOR ACID BATTERIES density of 1.27 grams per centimeter cubic. (It is known that for lead-acid batteries, very pure sulfuric acid is required, so you can safely add it to acidify the mash). Then I began to heat this brew. He heated the hour at 95-97 degrees Celsius, it should not boil. Then he took it off the heater, wrapped it in an old quilted jacket ( телогрейка, ватник, бушлатик - Russian national clothes - https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0 ... 0%B8%D0%BA) and left it until the next day. Then I added a little garden lime, controlled the acidity. Left about 6 pH. Carefully wrung juice from this mash. it turned out about 10 liters (I added a little water when heating up). Added yeast. Mash began to walk hellishly !!! After fermentation, I first distilled. From the apparatus came alcohol with a stupefying smell of sunflower oil. The second rectification gave ordinary alcohol. No odor and extraneous taste. Just alcohol.

Y1969, thank you for your post. Very interesting methodology, I have read about the use of sulfuric acid for saccrification in industrial applications. Your's is the first discription I have read using acid for home distilling.Was your yeild worth the trouble to do it again?

There are not many foods I hate, but topinamboer is one of them! Horrible taste. In Austria they make some schnaps from it, but that has the same horrible taste. It is said that onions can be used to make an imitation of tequila, because of the inulin. But the taste of onion must be removed with quite a lot of trouble.Horrible stuff!Root it up, dry it and use it as fuel for your still, that would be my advice.

just sayin' wrote:Y1969, thank you for your post. Very interesting methodology, I have read about the use of sulfuric acid for saccrification in industrial applications. Your's is the first discription I have read using acid for home distilling.Was your yeild worth the trouble to do it again?

acidification with mineral acids has long been used in the food industry throughout the world. In home brewing, sulfuric acid is good because it is available. Modern acid batteries with a calcium composition are so capricious to the quality of the electrolyte that they require an ultra-pure electrolyte - this is the first. It can be bought at any auto parts store. Hydrochloric acid in Russia is difficult to buy - it is banned for sale. It is used for some kind of organic synthesis of some drugs (in general, the list of banned reagents in Russia is completely stupid, for example, acetone, concentrated sulfuric acid, concentrated acetic acid are prohibited for sale). You can also use lactic acid, citric acid and ascorbic acid, but with the acquisition of them there are always some problems. Or the firm on the other end of the city or the price is indecently large.

Given limitless tubers free for the digging, required acid is still available without a regulatory paper trail, is the yield quantity and alcohol quality sufficient to repeat the process? Will that thicket of wild sunflowers now be considered a positive rather than a foe? Do you plan additional harvests?

Please consider this experience as a game of inflamed mind. I will not cook this moonshine for anything. In Jerusalem artichoke 20 percent of inulin, taking into account all the losses, one kilogram of tubers can get no more than 100 ml of alcohol. And this Jerusalem artichoke needs to be dug, washed, cooked ...It is very fun, informative, scientific and hi-tech. But absolutely impractical.When next autumn I will fight with these jungles, I'd better again give it to a neighbor who breeds piglets. It should be noted - the pigs eat Jerusalem artichoke with great pleasure, but then they also suffer from flatulence. Inulin is not digested either in pigs or in humans.

Rebel_Yell wrote:Interesting read. Why not put the pigs where the Jerusalem artichoke grows? They will dig the root themselves and kill the whole patch if allowed.

Colleague! Events take place in my village house. It is located in a small village located in the forest. Once a wild boar came to my garden, where there were two rows of potatoes. It seems that one and a half feet of soil was cut with a bulldozer. Let the artichoke grow better. I will destroy it eventually.

Kareltje wrote:Good advice, Rebel_Yell. But does not take the meat of the pigs take the horrible taste of the topinamboer?

I do not know about artichoke. I know for sure that pork takes a confectionery taste. My neighbor fed piglets with expired candy snickers. Bacon acquired the taste of peanuts with chocolate.

Don't know if I would like that. A recipe for rabbit says, you should give the rabbit sellery and other nice herbs two weeks before you want to slaughter it.

And a recipe for filled trout says, you should keep the trout a week or so in an aquarium with clean water, until its stomach and bowels are empty. Than you put the desired mix of vegatables in the water, wait till he has eaten it all and than kill and fry the fish.